Contents

Plot

Pablo and Meca, two young urban delinquents, live from day to
day by a series of robberies, mostly car thefts. During one such
robbery, the car’s owner catches the two in the act. They roll up
the windows and lock the doors to prevent intrusion. Helplessly
trapped inside the troublesome vehicle by a mob that has now closed
in around them, the pair forces a clear path through the crowd by
brandishing a gun, before making their escape into the street.
However, the stolen car only proves to be the first step in a more
elaborate scheme. Spotting an attractive waitress named Ángela at a
local cafeteria, Pablo is immediately captivated by the receptive
(and equally restless) young woman, who soon becomes his lover,
promising to stay together always. Pablo teaches Ángela to shoot a
gun and, subsequently, inducts her into their gang after an
afternoon of makeshift target shooting.

The gang now consists of four members: Pablo, Meca, Ángela, and
Sebastian or "Sebas". Sebas has joined the group to help in a
series of more ambitious thefts, but he is initially unhappy with
the presence of a girl in the band. Pablo, with Meca’s support,
assures him that Ángela can hold her own.

In the first robbery, that of a factory office on the outskirts
of Madrid, Ángela, disguised as a boy with a mustache, serves as a
lookout. In the second holdup, she shoots one of the guards who has
fired at the gang’s car. At the conclusion of each of these
robberies, Meca brings the getaway car, usually a stolen one, to a
deserted area and set it ablaze. He stands by the side of the fire
and enjoys viewing the flames.

Alternately spending their idle time at discothèques and video
arcades, acting on their impulsive whims, and succumbing to the
intoxication of drug use, the emboldened quartet begins to stage an
ever-escalating series of hold-ups throughout the city.

Their share of the money from the two successful robberies
enables Ángela and Pablo to buy a new apartment on the outskirts of
the city. It is from this location that the gang plans a third
robbery, the assault on a branch bank in one of the more congested
middle class neighborhoods of Madrid. During this robbery, Sebas
kills one of the guards and is, in turn, gunned down outside the
bank by a squad of police who have surrounded the area. Pablo,
Meca, and Ángela manage to make a getaway, but Pablo has been
seriously wounded and is bleeding profusely.

Ángela brings him back to the apartment to nurse him while Meca
disposes of the getaway car in the usual manner. However, the black
cloud of smoke attracts a police helicopter and Meca is killed as
he resists arrest. Understanding the seriousness of Pablo’s wound,
Ángela calls a doctor who, upon arriving at the apartment, confirms
the gravity of Pablo’s condition. He has been shot in the liver and
must be brought to a hospital if he is to survive. Refusing, she
offers him a large bundle of cash if he will treat Pablo right
there. Taking the money in his black satchel, the physician
promises to return shortly with instruments for surgery. Hours
pass, but the doctor does not come back. Pablo, who remains
unconscious, lies immobile on the bed. He stops breathing while
Ángela sits in the darkened room staring at him. When she realizes
he is dead, she fills her own duffel bag with the remaining money
from the robbery and walks of the apartment. She disappears into
the shadows of the approaching night walking towards the city.

Cast

The film was shot using a nonprofessional cast of actors from
the Villaverde area just south of Madrid.[1]
Two members of the principal cast were arrested for separate
criminal incidents during the filming, causing a stir in their
Spanish homeland.

Berta Socuéllamos - Ángela

José Antonio Valdelomar - Pablo

Jesús Arias - Meca

José María Hervás Roldán - Sebas

María del Mar Serrano - Meca's girlfriend

Consuelo Pascual - Pablo's grandmother

Analysis

Deprisa, Deprisa is a raw and sobering portrait of a
generation at an existential crossroads, struggling to find mooring
and direction in an uncertain climate of transformative, social
revolution, as Spain emerged
from the repression of fascism towards the liberalization of
democracy.[2] It is this dichotomy that
is reflected in the recurring image of passing trains that bisect
the horizon - a perennial view from the public housing suburb
outside the city where Pablo and Ángela live - a visual bifurcation
that illustrates, not only their socioeconomic marginality, but
also exposes their irreparable moral fissure.[2]

The film captures the rootlessness of a morally stunted, lost
generation that has come of age at a time of profound political and
cultural transformation. The reckless, thrill-seeking, young
anti-heroes of Carlos Saura's Deprisa, Deprisa also
indirectly bear the scars of a life lived in the periphery -
paradoxically insulated from the tyranny of institutional rule, but
also divorced from the inured resilience engendered by its imposed
sense of order. [2]

Carlos Saura
described Deprisa, Deprisa as a "romantic" film, in the
historical sense of the word, as it expresses the outlook of the
nineteenth century rebel who stood outside society and who rejected
social norms. [3]
The film's four young protagonists, rebelling against the
constraints of social organization, are in fact, products of the
very system that they reject and that has rejected them.[4]

Reception

Deprisa, Deprisa was a critical and financial success,
winning the Golden Bear at the 1981 Berlin International
Film Festival. The film opened to excellent reviews in Madrid
and was producer Elías Querejeta’s largest grossing
production of the fifteen years of his collaboration with director
Carlos Saura.[5]
The film was also ensnared in controversy. In France and West Germany there was talk of its being
banned due to the view that the film glorified violence and drug
culture. Eventually, however, it was released with restrictive
classifications in both countries.[5]

In Spain, the conservative newspaper ABC criticized the film’s social
realism and accused Saura of paying his cast in hard drugs.[6]
Saura denied the accusation, saying that his cast of real life
delinquents, including Jesús Arias who was on day release from
prison, had a much better idea than he of where to get drugs.[7]